Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 18 June

June 18, 2021

There have been a series of significant openings and celebrations this week that are a demonstration of considerable achievements by many teams across the Trust.

At the start of the week, the brand new GP hub, the Lyndon Primary Care Centre, opened its doors to patients. This building is opening in phases and houses the former Carters Green GP practice and the Lyndon Health Centre, formerly at the Parsonage Street site. It’s great to welcome GP practice patients to the hospital site at Sandwell – tangible evidence of our integrated care vision. Your Health Partnership, the primary care network that runs the GP practices, joined our Trust just over 12 months ago and have formed a directorate within the Primary Care, Community and Therapies Clinical Group. The YHP team bring valuable expertise and in many cases helpful challenge as we aim to further integrate services, based around our population’s needs.

We celebrated the first anniversary of the Children’s Emergency Care Unit (CECU) at City Hospital. This new unit provides a much improved environment to care for the urgent and emergency care needs of our younger patients and is in line with the Care Quality Commission’s recommendations from a previous inspection. As we continue with our preparations for a future CQC visit, I know that this is one of the many areas where we can demonstrate real improvements in patient care.

And, the Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC) at Sandwell had its official opening in its new home, since relocating from Parsonage Street in April. The team at the Sandwell UTC can see patients with a minor injury or illness, and have walk-in and booked appointments available. The centre is near to the emergency department and as right across the region attendance in Emergency Departments is reaching record levels, the value of a centre with GP-led expertise for those patients who don’t need Emergency Department care is ever more important.

With all these developments, it is the collaboration of lots of different professionals working together that makes the project a success. Our organisation is made up of thousands of different individuals, all with our own experiences, skills and specialist knowledge. Without collaborative, respectful team working, we would not be able to achieve anything which is why I’m so pleased to see these developments come to fruition.

I wanted to mention this week the high regard that we are all held in by the communities we serve. During the pandemic we were overwhelmed with support and gratitude from individuals and organisations both locally and nationally. People recognised your sacrifice in stepping up to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and were only too happy to show that recognition with donations, messages and of course, the weekly “clap for carers”. As we progress through the different phases of the pandemic it is vital that we remember that people look to us, as being representatives of the NHS in our local area. As lockdown restrictions change, we must not let our guard down. The four week extension to restrictions was put in because of the worrying rise in cases of the delta variant. As tired as we may have become of the restrictions to our way of life, I must urge you all to continue to comply. That means being careful about social distancing, wearing your mask, and handwashing. It also means not exceeding the numbers of people meeting inside from different households or the rules on external gatherings. We set an example of how to behave to others. People look to us and follow what we do so it is our duty to do the right thing to keep ourselves, our families and our communities safe.

Congratulations to Denise Evans, this week’s Star of the Week. Denise works in Imaging and was nominated for going above and beyond to support a patient who was very confused and needed help catching the bus home. Denise waited at the bus stop, in her own time, with the patient to make sure she caught the right bus so that she could get home safely. Thank you, Denise, for going the extra mile to look after one of our vulnerable patients.

Thank you for your continued commitment to our patients and population.

Have a great weekend.

Richard